where a reporter/mom from Brooklyn chronicles ex-pat life in Japan since moving there in December 2007 with her husband and two boys...

Monday, November 15, 2010

Hello Mr. President.

I see that you and I share a love for the Daibutsu...

(Reuters Pictures) Obama stands between Takao Sato (L), chief monk of the Kotoku-in Temple, and Michiko Sato, the director of the temple, during a visit to the Great Buddha statue in Kamakura on Nov. 14, 2010.

Obama, here as part of a 10-day trip through Asia, spent his last day in Yokohama chatting with the Russian President Medvedev about an Asia-Pacific free trade zone, then taking a helicopter to Kamakura to visit a "colossal copper Buddha that he had seen as a 6-year-old," the IHT reported. "The giant statue, which experts believe dates to 1252, has 656 coils of hair and weighs 121 tons. While there, Obama ate a green tea ice cream bar -- the same kind he had here as a child -- and left with a bag of gifts including bracelets for his daughters Malia and Sasha. 'It is wonderful to return to this great treasure of Japanese culture,' Obama wrote in the guest book. 'Its beauty has stayed with me for many years.'"